Catalyst
by Whitelight72
Summary: He loves her. She loves him. Neither admit it. What will finally be the catalyst to make them tell each other their feelings? B/B Wannabe In The Weeds Spoilers. Starts with the two weeks Brennan thought Booth was dead and continues on from there...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Go figure.**

**A/N: Alright, so I wanted to make sure I got this posted before tomorrow night's episode. This will be a continuing story, but I'm not sure when Chapter 2 will be posted.**

**Chapter 1**

There was a quiet chatter in the club as she walked in

There was a quiet chatter in the club as she walked in. The call from Booth had been strangely cryptic, and she could think of no reason why he would call her back to a place where their latest victim had frequented.

The instant Booth noticed his partner walk in, he set his drink on the table and rose to greet her.

"What's going on? Why did… you call me here, Booth?"

He grinned. "Your need to sing in front of a live audience," he said, spreading out his arms to gesture at all the people around him. "It's finite, Bones."

She took a step forward. "No way." She drew them out, trying to tell herself they weren't going to make her do this.

"Hey, I got the music, the frivolity… What else do you need?" His voice grew louder, and she finally realized that all her co-workers from the Jeffersonian, as well as Dr. Sweets, were present.

"Come on, Dr. Brennan, you can do it," Hodgins called, clapping loudly. The others joined in the cheering. "We're here for you. We're here for you."

She returned her gaze to Booth, who had his arms crossed across his chest and was staring at her with a smirk. Dr. Sweets stood up and came up beside her.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder as the pianist started playing the beginning of 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'. "You're very controlled, Dr. Brennan. I think it would be a good idea to let yourself go."

He pushed her forward slightly. She stopped when she came next to Booth and turned back around to look at Sweets.

"Really?" she asked him skeptically.

"Yeah," he nodded enthusiastically.

"What about you?"

"Hey, I will be singing Lime In The Coconut afterwards, and you will be extremely impressed, as was my abnormal psychology class in college. This opportunity is a gift from Agent Booth." As he spoke her partner's name, he clapped his hand onto his shoulder. Booth gave an incredulous glance down at the man's hand, and he promptly removed it.

"Trust yourself, trust your friends. Let it rip." He pointed to the stage. "Let's hear it."

The cheering began again as Booth took her arm and spun her towards the stage. He set his hands intimately on her shoulders and guided her forward. Angela was giving ridiculous catcalls as she stepped onto the platform.

She was still feeling hesitant and turned to look at Booth. The moment they met eyes, he broke out into a grin and started swaying his shoulders slightly. He looked like a child with all that happiness emoting off of him, and she couldn't disappoint him.

She feels a brief amazement at how this man in front of her can get her to open up to him; to do things she'd never in a million years do otherwise. Feeling like a fool, but smiling all the while anyway, she pulled her arms out of her jacket and threw it down to the floor. She grabbed the microphone just in time and the lyrics came out of her memory as though she listened to the song everyday.

"_Come home in the morning light. My mother says when you gonna live your life right?_" She exchanged glances with Booth once more, and he was still grinning at her like an idiot. His cheerfulness was contagious. Unbeknownst to any of them, Pam walked into the club.

_She's singing to him_, Pam thought. _Seeley told me there was nothing going on, but look at them. She's singing straight to him. She's the one standing in my way. She's the reason he won't admit his love for me._

"_Oh mama dear we're not the fortunate ones, and girls, they want to have fun."_ She held back her laughter as Booth lit his Zippo lighter and started to sway it above his head. _"Oh girls just wanna have fun."_

She couldn't contain herself from the giddiness and when the short break appeared, she started dancing, more like jumping, around the stage. Booth stared at her with something akin to amazement. He'd never seen her like this. In his three years of working with Dr. Temperance Brennan, after becoming so insanely close to the woman, he'd never seen her look so happy… so free.

She jumped back in when the time came. _"The phone rings in the middle of the night. My father yells what you gonna do with your life?"_ Her eyes haven't left Booth, both of them enjoying this immensely. To stress the words of the song, she wags her finger in his direction, leaning slightly towards him. He mirrors her, shaking his head and shoulders side to side and leaning forward towards her.

Angela and Hodgins, both with a glass of wine in front of them, are laughing and grinning. Angela has both her hands up in the air, dancing in her seat. Cam isn't even attempting to hold back her laughter as she claps her hands along to the beat.

"_Oh daddy dear, you know you're still number one, but girls, they want to have fun."_

Booth is grinning hugely now, his entire body moving back and forth as he claps to the rhythm.

"_Oh girls, just wanna have… That's all they really want…"_ Her voice carries out the notes perfectly, flawlessly. Booth comes to the conclusion that she really does sound better than the original, but then realizes that perhaps he may be a bit biased.

"Look at me, not her," Pam says quietly, to quietly for anyone to hear her.

Brennan continues singing the bridge, unaware of the psycho stalker woman in the back of the club who's going for the handgun that she had previously set down on the table.

"Seeley," she says, holding the gun in her hands. He doesn't hear her. "Seeley," she yells, much louder than before, and he hears her this time. He turns in his seat, wondering who is saying his name. No one actually calls him by his first name, except on occasion Cam. But Cam was with the group, and therefore wouldn't be calling his name from the behind him.

He sees Pam standing there, and his confusion increases. _What does she want?_

"I'm doing this for us," she says. _Doing what?_

His confusion disappears as he sees her aim the gun towards his partner. As with every time his partner's life is threatened, his body goes into overdrive before his mind fully processes what's going on. He stands up in the process of his right hand speeding across his body to draw his weapon from the holster on his left side.

Part of him, the part remembering all his training from the FBI and Army, screams at him that you never stand in the line of fire before you draw your weapon. The part of him loyal to Bones, that loves Bones, ignores it.

The shot rings out, and the right side of his body jerks back as the bullet lodges itself into his shoulder. The happiness is gone from the air, and everyone not used to working with the FBI on a daily basis starts screaming. The music is cut and Brennan drops the microphone, staring at her partner.

He stumbles backwards, blinking in shock. Pam lowers her weapon, staring at her obsession with horror. She hadn't meant to shoot him. He just got in her way. Angela covered her hands over her mouth, watching the scene in terror and Hodgins pulled her slightly behind him, his mind screaming to protect her above all else.

Brennan was down of the stage and behind Booth as he fell to the ground. She looked up at the shooter and Pam narrowed her eyes at the anthropologist. She pulled her weapon back up and took aim.

But after working for so long with the FBI, after doing such dangerous work in the third world countries, Brennan's reflexes were much faster. With a fury she didn't even recognize, she picked up the gun that had dropped to the floor with Booth and shot at Pam, not even pausing to aim.

The bullet sailed smoothly through her neck and Brennan barely acknowledged the blood rushing out and her collapsing to the ground before turning back to her partner.

"Zack," Hodgins said, becoming the current voice of reason. "You call 911."

As he walked over to the fallen shooter, he reached down and made sure the gun was out of her hands.

"Booth, you're gonna be fine." Her breathing was labored, the panic setting in. "I'm right here. Come on. You're gonna do this. You're gonna be fine." Her hands were pressing down on his chest, trying desperately to stop the bleeding.

"You can make this. Come on. Come on, Booth!" His hand came up to clutch one of hers, holding it against his chest while blood started oozing between her fingers on her other hand which was covering the wound.

"Come on! Come on, Booth! Come on!" She leaned down and pulled him into her, effectively spilling his blood all over her.

"Come on. Come on. Come on." She repeated it like a mantra, trying to get him to stay with her. "Come on, you're gonna make this." She felt like she was hyperventilating.

Cam watched in awe and despair; Dr. Brennan was so unhinged right now. She'd never seen her like this. Angela had her hands near her face, frozen in terror as she watched the scene unravel. Brennan couldn't lose Booth. She couldn't; it would break her.

Booth's eyes stared into Brennan's, void, empty. He knew she was speaking to him, and he was desperately trying to comprehend it, but it was all lost on him. His vision was rapidly failing him, and he heard Bones call his name one last time before everything was black.

Brennan clutched his hand tighter as his eyes closed. Her head jerked away from him, looking to her friends. "Where the hell is the ambulance?" Her voice was frantic, raw panic.

"It's on the way, Dr. Brennan," Zack said hastily.

She snapped her face back to Booth. His eyes were closed now, and he looked anything but peaceful.

"Come on, Booth," she whispered. "Come on, you can't do this to me. You can't leave me. Damn it, Seeley, open your eyes!"

She vaguely registered the fact that she could hear sirens in the background. She could feel someone pulling on her shoulders.

"Brennan, sweetie, the paramedics are here," Angela said quietly. "You need to let them work."

She scooted back on the floor, unable to force her legs to work. Angela crouched down next to her. It only took a moment for her to snap back – the moment they started to wheel the gurney out of the club.

"Wait," she called, jumping to her feet. "I'm riding with him!"

"Miss, are you family?" the paramedic asked cautiously.

"No, no, but…" she searched her mind for an excuse. This was usually where Booth would flash his badge and get his way. She reached past the paramedic and into the coat Booth was still wearing. She withdrew his badge. "FBI… we're partners."

"Alright, Agent…"

"Brennan," she filled in. She hadn't technically lied to them. She just said that she was an FBI agent's partner; they just assumed that she too was FBI.

"Alright Agent Brennan, you'll ride with us," the paramedic conceded. "Hop in the back."

She didn't hesitate as she jumped in the back first. They pushed the gurney up after her, and she clutched Booth's hand in hers as they shut the doors and took off.

* * *

**Hope you liked it. Finals are next week though, so I'm not positive when I'll update. Stick around though. **

**Love it, hate it, feel free to flame it.**

**Whitelight72**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Not mine. Go figure.**

**Chapter 2**

She sat in the waiting room, just staring at the wall. She didn't know what to do. Her brilliant mind was not processing tonight's events. Directly after the ambulance arrived, they told her that FBI or not, she had to wait in the waiting room. She was unhappy, but didn't argue. She didn't even speak.

Dr. Brennan recognized the fact that she was going into shock, but she couldn't seem to care. All that mattered right now was her partner; her partner that was quite possibly on his deathbed.

Only a few minutes later her friends came rushing in. Angela squatted down in front of Brennan, staring up into her empty eyes.

"Cam, get me a blanket," Angela ordered. "I think she's in shock."

Brennan blankly glanced down at her hands. They were shaking, and covered in dried blood – Booth's blood. She felt some type of fabric wrap around her shoulders, but her mind barely registered it.

They were there for hours. Angela kept trying to get Brennan to speak, but she wouldn't say a word. Angela didn't think she even understood what was being said to her. She was broken out of her revere when someone very familiar from the FBI walked in.

"Dr. Brennan!" He hastily made his way over to her, demanding to know what had happened. It was late at night and he didn't enjoy being woken up.

When Brennan didn't answer, Angela stepped in. "We were all out and Agent Booth was shot," she supplied.

"And what of the shooter?"

"It was Pam Nunan," Dr. Sweets supplied. "She was related to our most recent case."

"What happened to her?" Cullen demanded.

"Dr. Brennan shot her," Angela told him.

"Where the hell did she get a gun?"

"It was Booth's." Everyone was surprised when she spoke. "After he was shot, she aimed at me. I picked the gun up off the ground and shot her." She returned to gazing blankly at the wall behind Cullen.

"Is she going to be okay?" Cullen asked, showing concern for the first time that night.

"She's in shock," Cam supplied.

"She and Agent Booth are so close," Angela informed him. "After all her problems with people leaving her, this has got to be terrifying her."

They spoke about her like she wasn't even there. In a way, she wasn't. She hadn't any idea what they were talking about.

"I'm going to go speak with his doctor," Cullen announced.

.xoxo.

Hours later. No one had left. Cam called his family only an hour ago, and they were coming from Pennsylvania. Rebecca was on her way with Parker.

"Dr. Bones, Dr. Bones!" a child's voice cried. The nickname – Booth's nickname for her, finally got her to speak again.

"Hi Parker," she greeted softly.

"Dr. Bones, you're all bloody," he said fearfully. "Was you hurt?"

"No Parker, I wasn't hurt. The blood isn't mine…" she trailed off.

"Is it Daddy's?" he asked. "They told me Daddy was hurt. How was Daddy hurt, Dr. Bones?"

"Your father saved my life, Parker," she whispered. "He saved my life."

"Then how come you're all bloody?" he asked again.

"Because I was trying to make your dad stop bleeding, and it got all over me."

Parker hugged her around her legs. "Daddy will be alright Dr. Bones, you'll see. Daddy's always alright."

Brennan smiled at the child's innocence. Parker really was such a sweet child. It would break his little heart if Booth didn't make it.

An hour later Booth's parents showed up. She wasn't sure how they got there so quickly from Pennsylvania, but she didn't question it. Parker was asleep on her lap, wrapped in a blanket so he didn't get any blood on him.

She stood up with him and set him back down on the chair to greet Booth's parents.

"Mr. and Mrs. Booth, I presume," she started. They nodded. "I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan. I… work with your son."

"No, no, he works with some woman named Bones," his father argued.

She held back a grin. "Yes, that's me. It's just not how I generally introduce myself. Booth – er, Seeley and Parker are the only one's who call me that."

"Right then. Dr. Brennan, can you please explain to us what happened to our son?"

She sucked in a breath. This was Booth's department. He told the grieving families the bad news.

"Earlier tonight," she starts out, but glances at the clock on the wall and starts again. "Er, last night I guess, we were all at a karaoke bar in Alexandria. He'd called me there to convince me to go up on stage and sing.

"We were mostly celebrating the closing of our most recent case. For obvious reasons, I can't go into details, but there was a woman who had originally been a suspect. She was, slightly on the heavy side; not extremely overweight, but extremely low self-esteem. I… people tell me, your son often times, that I'm too blunt or straightforward.

"All I did was ask her a question about our victim, and she somehow took it in as me insulting her size. Your son, of course, being the sweet man that he is… He… He was just nice to her. Said some nice things to her, but according to Dr. Sweets – oh, he's our profiler," she added at their confused expressions when she mentioned their therapist.

"According to Dr. Sweets," she continued. "Pam was incredibly unstable. It turns out she had been… stalking our victim, but she wasn't the killer. She just believed herself in love with him. When she heard about his death, her affections transferred to… Booth, the first person to show her the slightest bit of compassion.

"I suppose… I guess that she'd been following him around for a while, because I'm assuming she was aware of how much time your son and I spend together, and that was the cause of her actions. She… I was up onstage singing and she came in with the intention to shoot me, clearly under the belief that I was standing in her way to Booth. I never even noticed her until after she already shot, but Booth had.

"And… and…" She was aware of the fact that she was sobbing now, but she made no attempt to stop it. "And he stood up in front of me. God, the idiot didn't even have his gun fully drawn! Why would he do something so _stupid_?"

"Sweetie…" Brennan turned to see her best friend standing behind her.

"Why would he do that Angela? I'm not… I'm not worth it. Damn it, I'm not worth it."

"You'll have to excuse us," Angela said to Booth's parents. "As you can see, she's still a little off after seeing her partner shot."

"Dr. Sweets!" Agent Cullen called, addressing the young psychologist. "Can you please come back here for a moment?"

They were only out of sight for a few moments. But when they returned, it made all the difference. Director Cullen had a grave look on his face, and Dr. Sweets was staring at Brennan sympathetically.

_Oh no,_ Angela thought. _This is going to be bad news._

* * *

**Hope you enjoyed it. This is going to be slightly, and I mean VERY slightly canon. Only in the sense that Booth is going to fake his death and Sweets is going to not tell Brennan. Other than that, everything will be different. She won't be quite so compartmentalized. Actually, she'll be an absolute mess.**

**Booth's Death coming up next chapter. Reviews make the heart grow fonder.**

**Love it, hate it, feel free to flame it!  
Whitelight72**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I apologize for the wait. I went home for two weeks, but now I'm back to my apartment and my very lovely computer. Here's chapter 3. **

**Chapter 3**

She didn't speak. She _couldn't_ speak. Dead. Passed away. Didn't make it. In a better place. No matter how you worded it, it all came down to the same thing in the end; Booth was gone and he wasn't coming back.

Angela and Cam were crying. Cullen was visibly upset over loosing one of his best agents. Sweets was sad, but still ever observant. Jack was comforting Angela. Zack was also upset, but confused as well, not sure how he should be feeling and if his current response was appropriate.

Parker had crawled into Rebecca's lap and was sobbing against his shoulder, and Mrs. Booth had turned into her husband's embrace.

Booth was the one Brennan turned to when she need to cry. It was always his shoulder that was soaked in her tears. She got her father and brother back, but lost her best friend, her partner. Booth was the only person who could see straight through her. He knew when she was upset. When something was bothering her, even if he had no idea what it was, he would show up at her apartment in the late hours of the night with a bag of Thai food in one hand and sometimes a bottle of wine in the other.

"Excuse me," she muttered, though no one really paid her any attention in the middle of the chaos. "I need to... I need to go..."

Angela broke away from her fiancé for a moment to chase after her best friend, grabbing her arm and pulling her into a tight hug.

"Are you going to be okay, sweetie?" Angela asked through her own tears.

"Yeah, Ange," Brennan replied, her voice tight with controlled emotions. "I just... I need to be... alone..."

This, of course, was a lie. She didn't want to be alone. She _wanted_ to be with Booth. Booth wasn't there, though, and she was automatically reverting back to how she had lived life pre-Booth - cold and alone.

Brennan hailed a cab outside and had it drive her back to the Checker Box so that she could retrieve her own car.

"Hey, you alright lady?" the cab driver asked as she haded him the money when the arrived.

She realized that she must have looked a mess, blood was still all over her shirt and her face was probably blotchy; she easily admitted that she had been crying, not loudly, but still. She nodded weakly to the cab driver before making her way to her car in the parking lot.

She got in and pulled out of the lot onto the highway, making her way out of Alexandria. Her breath was coming in fast, short gasps and Brennan easily admitted that she was probably hyperventilating.

Once more, tears started pouring down her eyes, but this time she made no move to wipe them away. Rather, she embraced them. He was _gone_. Never would she see that charm smile when he was trying to convince her to do something for him. Never would she see that cocky belt buckle that everyone always felt the need to comment on, or his ridiculous colored socks. Never again would he be knocking on her door at midnight with a box of takeout because he knew she was feeling down. Never again would they sit at the diner, staring back at one another and laughing at some random joke. Never again would they sit in Sweets' office and talk to each other rather than him to keep him out of the conversation.

"Damn it," she hissed, beating her hands on the steering wheel and swerving off the side of the highway and parking her car on the shoulder. She sat there at least 20 minutes, trying desperately to stop her sobbing to drive home, but she couldn't control it. Finally she dug blindly around in her purse until she felt her fingers wrap around her cell phone.

She hit the '3' on her phone - the speed dial for Angela - and waited impatiently for her to pick up. Rather than hearing her friend's voice over the phone, she heard her fiancé's.

"This is Jack," he answered.

"Hodgins," she breathed in the phone, trying not to lose it while talking to her colleague.

"Dr. Brennan!" He sounded surprised. "What do you need?"

Brennan ran her free hand over her face, trying to stifle her sobs. "I can't believe I'm saying this," she laughed sadly. "I need... I need someone to come pick me up."

He was suddenly worried. "Dr. Brennan, are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?"

"Not physically," she responded weakly.

"Where are you?" Brennan could hear him moving around, and she assumed he was searching for his keys.

"I'm on..." She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. "I'm on Interstate 395 at mile marker 7. I'm pulled off on the shoulder. I can't... I can't drive like this. I'm sorry to bother you, Jack."

"Nah, don't worry about it Dr. B. I'm on my way now. I'll see you in a few minutes."

Her cell phone beeped, signaling the end of the call. She took a deep, ragged breath and leaned her forehead against the steering wheel.

When Hodgins' car pulled up behind her ten minutes later, she had only somewhat controlled her sobs. He approached her car door and pulled it open, his heart breaking a little at the sight of the usually so controlled doctor so torn up.

"Come on, Dr. B.," he said gently, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her from the car. He guided her to the passenger seat of his car and shut the door behind him. "Do you want me to have someone come pick up your car?" he asked as he pulled back onto the interstate.

She nodded slowly, and through her tears said, "Yes, thank you, Jack."

He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his home. "Yes, Derek, there is a silver car at mile marker 7 on Interstate 395. The keys are on the front seat. I would like you to please take someone with you and retrieve the car and bring it back to the mansion."

…

After some arguing, Brennan convinced Hodgins to take her back to her apartment rather than his mansion. As soon as she closed her front door, she fell back against it and collapsed to the floor.

"You promised me!" she screamed hoarsely into the empty apartment. "You promised you wouldn't leave me, you bastard!"

* * *

**Sorry, I know it's kinda short, but I just thought that was an excellent place to cut the chapter. I'll try to have chapter 4 up by Sunday/Monday.**

**Love it, hate it, feel free to flame it!  
**

**Whitelight72**


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